A lecture at The Baltimore Museum of Art, on November 17, 1967, entitled "Exhibition Merry-Go-Round- the Rapid Growth of Traveling Exhibits" by Annemarie Pope, founder and head of the nonprofit education organization, International Exhibitions Foundation. For fourteen years Mrs. Pope served as chief of the Traveling Exhibition Services at the Smithsonian Institution, circulating over 400 exhibitions to more than 600 museum and galleries. This lecture was part of the six-part Museum Mornings series entitled "Art-Its Many Faces."

Transcript

Thank you very much, that was the nicest introduction I have ever heard. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I don't disappoint you by not talking about something very scholarly, something about old master drawings which is actually my chosen field but I thought you might know something more about the intricate business of organizing traveling exhibitions, especially because it seems to be a growing thing all the time and I would like to point out some of the reasons why that is so. It's a subject of tremendous importance today and then of course it's the subject closest to my heart and for that reason I am very happy to talk about it. One of the great exponents of traveling exhibitions, Doctor Grace L McCann Morley [00:01:00] director of the San Francisco of art in the 50s and later director of the national museum in New Delhi, India. Said in the Unesco traveling exhibition manual, traveling exhibitions have already demonstrated their usefulness in many parts of the world. They bring to remote places the possibility of knowledge and enjoyment of the arts. Going from country to country they furnish an intellectual and cultural interchange of great value and broad influence. They can be used very profitably to enrich education at all levels and at all fields and can be adapted as needed to impart information to give instruction and to offer pleasure. Unesco has sponsored exhibitions from the beginning of its existence. Instead of working only with big museums and big exhibitions, it has stressed the need for a huge network of small shows for small places which will bring people closer together. It published this manual for temporary and traveling exhibitions in 3 languages which is now used all over the world. It was first published in 1953 by Elodie Courter Osborn, one of the greatest persons in this field to whom we owe practically all our techniques in the field. A new edition was published in 1963 and I had something to do with that because I felt we could not let this valuable little booklet disappear, it was absolutely out of print. Now we have a new one, again in 3 languages
I shall not dwell on the technical side of traveling exhibitions as one hour would hardly be sufficient to assemble material to build boxes, to make lists, to pack, to ensure, to dispatch publicity and to fill in all the documents that we need, all the report forms. All this is left to the person in charge of exhibitions and the museum curators with whom she works and there are some very tiring aspects to this as Tony will agree. It's not all excitement, there's a great deal, it is very difficult, very problematic, often hopeless. I should like rather to talk to you today about the presence status of travelling exhibitions, a bit about the history and perhaps a glimpse into the future
The present time in the travelling exhibition service is very much alive. It's constantly growing, it's a necessity, it's of national and international experience and scope. It's closely linked to what is called the cultural explosion. It's closely linked to the museum expansion all over the country. There seem to be more museums every day, more galleries, more university centers, more community centers and many of them, could not do without travelling exhibitions because they do not own anything of their own or very little and some don't have much hope of owning valuable works of art, in many ways it's too late. One cannot begin to build up a good new museum showing works of art from every culture from every period, simply no longer possible. This is why the national gallery is very proud of its Leonardo, it's something that can no longer happen, if there's one painting left in the world of this kind, of this importance and if one has it naturally it is the most wonderful thing to happen
One of the reasons too for travelling exhibitions is the fact that museum membership is terribly important today, without this membership, museums could not exist and members naturally want to be enlightened and entertained, they want to see constantly changing exhibitions and the museum cannot very well do several a month or one a month, they need outside help for this. Also one of the privileges of museum memberships is to attend previews and for that reason alone there should be new exhibitions. This activity, these constantly new exhibitions are to become absolutely breathless and the entire museum is panting because so much is going on all the time. it's a 3 ring circus in many places
Now if you want to maintain this, if you want to enter into this kind of activity, then travelling exhibitions are very useful because the exhibition is handed to you very much on a silver platter, you have to still unpack it, you have to install it but otherwise you have a great deal of health, finally you're expected to sign a check for them
These exhibitions are not profit making, my organization is a non profit organization but all those that make them want to break even and for this reason the museums on a pro rated basis pay a rental fee and this goes for the most important shows as well as the smallest
Exhibitions then are really a necessity today, no longer a luxury for the few and not necessarily just for the so called poor museum. The smaller museum needs them because the director very often is the person who does everything. He receives the boxes, he may be the one to unpack them, to check them, he does the installation himself, he can do all this very often, he talks to the press and maybe lectures about the show that he has just received, so this is sort of a one man activity. But you also have the Chicago art institute, the Cleveland art museum, the national gallery of art, certainly this museum that likes to have an occasional travelling exhibition. It helps the staff, it's a breathing spell and also it sometimes brings material that they were not able to get and someone else has and that might be interesting for the museum's program. The demand for travelling exhibitions is definitely growing, it comes from all over and there are literally hundreds of museums today that need them and want them. From the national gallery to the latest one room center, they all want shows so a very special line of service with experts is needed
The beginning is initiative, imagination, someone who is a director of such a service has to think up new ideas all the time, one has to find material, one has to select what is suitable, what is right. Now and then one selects something that nobody wants, that can happen too. That has happened 2 or 3 times to me, I thought I had a marvelous show but nobody wanted it and that was that. The exhibitions can be in all different fields, should be a very versatile selection; paintings, drawings, prints, design and architecture, the architectural shows consist of photographs blown up to very large size and there can be models of buildings and so on. Children's art is always of great interest and while I was a the Smithsonian, I did a lot of natural history shows and science shows and photography shows. These demand a general background of knowledge in the history of art in the related fields that one covers, one can't be an expert in every one of these fields but one must know where to go or where to find the right books that help one with this particular show. The director should be a well trained person to begin and one needs languages certainly, one needs connections abroad, one should have lots and lots of friends in foreign museums as well as all museums here. These are reliable stuff because you cannot make all these plans on a high level and then find that nobody supports you. This is terribly important. Catalogues are in my mind an absolute necessity for shows, even for the lesser ones, because they are the ones that lasts, the exhibition comes and goes but the catalogue becomes part of a library and if it's a very special law like the one from Chatsworth from the Duke of Devonshire, then naturally one would like to have a catalogue in ones library to refer to it from time to time and very often travelling exhibitions publish a catalogue for the very first time. I found that very often there is no book on that subject of the exhibition, in Chatsworth there was only a very outdated catalogue and this was the first time a few years ago that an up to date well illustrated catalogue was published and it may interest you to know that Chatsworth is such a vast collection that we have been promised a second selection from there. While we had the exhibition here, there was another one on view in Chatsworth for the many visitors that come during the summer. It's a tremendous tourist place in England and it was just as good as the show that was here, it was just an extraordinary in quality. So we are planning another show 2 years from now, which means that you can also repeat, you don't always have to do something totally new but you can go in depth into a same collection again. The catalogues are really important and should be somewhat scholarly. I mean they cannot be too intensive, too detailed but whatever we publish, we write, we must justify it and it will give those who buy it something.
Then there is of course publicity which is also very important, it tells people about the show before it arrives, it's part of this whole package that an exhibition really is and this all has to be prepared also by the travelling exhibition office. 1, 2 or 3 press releases, there have to be photographs available slides, perhaps a slide lecture that can be used in a smaller place where there is no lecturer or there is no money to invite someone. Then there should be biographic data on artists, there should be bibliographies and anything else that one can think of that will make this a well rounded performance, not just the exhibition which one can slap on the wall but something more to really give people. This is my idea of a travelling exhibition, it should be a whole package
The supply is dwindling, the demand is growing, this is one of our difficulties. Many people feel that their works of art have been too much away from their room and they gradually being to say no to the many requests they get for more and more loans. Certain famous paintings would simply never be at home, if all the loans were granted. This goes for most of our well known collectors, they have to protect themselves because the demand is so terrific
Small museums on the other hand can not just go abroad, can not go to the Louvre or the British museum and say I would like an exhibition, what can you give me for next year? Because the museums also cannot not do this, they have too many requests, they want to work with someone they already know, the so called experts and one who has come before with whom they have worked successfully and happily, then it's much easier. If you come as a total stranger, then you may not be successful. But they have to know that you are trustworthy and that you know, you keep in touch with them which is one of the very important things, constant correspondence, there are just cases and cases of correspondence of each individual loan
One of the things that the expert is supposed to have is new ideas, possibilities that people haven't seen before, this is very important of course. The expert feels what is in the air and sometimes people have the same feelings about that, so in different parts of the country, suddenly ideas spring up that interfere a little bit because usually only one exhibition can be made. Now what is in the air? Sometimes it's a birthday, like Picasso's 85th birthday, everybody wants to celebrate that with an exhibition and they were absolutely all over the place all over the world. Then this past summer it was Chagall [00:15:43] and his birthday and there were many shows and all the Chagall [00:15:48] were out for many months, it was a great complication there. But of course it does something marvelous, it gives us an idea of a man's work from the beginning, sometimes 60 years of a man's development is very interesting and educational. Another idea is a revival. You suddenly find that art nouveau for instance was quite forgotten and a few years ago it came up again and then usually it lingers for several years until we get tired of it again perhaps. But a certain revival is something or a first show, this is something that the museum of modern art often does, the first show of art, of pop art, something like that. We go there and we are actually introduced for the first time to something where we had just seen one or the other painting but never the whole thing and that of course is terribly important, it is in the air too only we hadn't quite got into that point yet but the museum was doing it. Then there is an explosion and everybody else makes similar shows, it happens very often
Now with closer ties between people all over the world and with travel, the ease in which people go to Europe and the exhibitions travel by jet much more than by ship I find, there is of course much more cultural exchange in general. Washington is an extraordinary place to watch that. There are more 100 missions now and that means more than 100 cultural [Inaudible 00:17:33] and more than 100 ambitions. Now and then one country gets very excited about its own art and there may be an explosion there. A year or 2 ago we had a Peruvian explosion. Show after show after show from that country beginning with Peruvian gold and textiles of the Columbian period and 17th century, 18th century paintings up to today, modern paintings from Peru and it was in fact so much that I could see the moment when there was no more, there are only certain things that can be exported and when you've done them all within a year or 2, then that country again sinks a little bit into oblivion. It would seem to me, better to have a policy for a foreign country where each year it plans one or the other show and not too many together because really it's true some things are simply not available
We may not always understand each others political views but art points away and people do come closer to understanding more about each others art, I think that is a very important point in this cultural exchange. When there is a new nation and as you know there are constantly new ones, they think immediately of cultural exchange, which they wouldn't have done formerly, there is an ambassador and there is a minister and there is a military attach- and then there's also a cultural attach- and he's right there and begins to do something about his country. One ambassadress had only arrived about 4 weeks ago and asked me if I wanted to have an exhibition from her country in Africa, I said yes it might be very interesting, could we have some information, some photographs, perhaps some examples, I never heard from her again, it was too soon, this can not all be done in one moment, countries are not established enough neither here nor abroad and while it is a wonderful idea to start with this exchange, it also needs a firm basis
Now my foundation has done quite a lot for international exchange which is something that interests me particularly and being in Washington, it is of course quite natural. I started more than 20 years ago making exhibitions, the first was the American federation of arts, it already had a very well run service but during the war it had to stop and directly after the war and was asked to revitalize it again. When they moved to New York, I had to stay in Washington, then I started the service at the Smithsonian which continues and I stayed there 14 years. Now I have my own service, much fewer shows but exactly the ones that I like and want to make which is a marvelous position to be in. We arranged that at the Smithsonian, in the first 13 years, about 400 exhibitions which were shown in more than 600 museums, galleries, libraries, historical societies and schools. I have always been particularly interested in big scholarly shows, like those of old master drawings which usually came from the state collection of old masters. For instance in Holland, it came from the wax museum, in Berlin, from the state museum in Berlin and the Italian one came from the [Inaudible 00:21:35] that means in very cooperation with the curators, first coming to them with this idea, would you make such a show? It contains 100 or 150, maybe 200 drawings of the finest quality and now and then when it's toured, absolutely not at first, gradually maybe next year the situation has changed and this country and this particular museum is looking at it differently. Then we begin to work very closely together and it usually takes about 2 years, sometimes 3. My first 3 exhibitions took a little less because I was impatient to start. The first was Chinese art from the collection of the kind of Sweden which was shown at the national gallery just a year ago. Then British water colors from the Victoria and Albert museum, always wonderful to with, which started in Huston, Texas and then festival designs by Inigo Jones [00:22:46] 17th century architect and stage designer. Now these 3 shows, I really just had 3 and not 100 all at once, I could think in terms of this package that I mentioned. It meant cooperation with other institutions in Washington for instance Inigo Jones [00:23:07] the [Inaudible 00:23:09] library, arranged an exhibition of their rare books of that period, including some of the plays by Ben Johnson from which Inigo worked. This was the beginning of his interest in the theater. He made the set designs and the costumes for those very books. Now that I think is terribly interesting for people and really very educational to have that in the same city at the same time. It wasn't under the same roof but very near by and the ambassadors usually work very closely with us usually at the time of the preview, we always have a curator, that's part of my system that I invite the curator that helped me, that worked so long and hard with me on the exhibition to come as our guest for a few weeks at least and this man or woman comes very often for the first time to America, which is another useful cultural exchange for our country. We have so far always managed to do it on our own but I now hope that the state department will be able to help me on this a little bit because they do invite a lot of scholars and perhaps that would invite one I propose. Then we arrange lectures, these lectures I think are very important too. The national gallery has a lecture every Sunday as you probably know. Every Sunday at 4, all through the year, now very frequently the entire month when the exhibition is there, they are taking up lectures on that subject, so again we bring in other people, not necessarily the curator that came with the show but experts in America so people get a pretty good idea. There's the show, there are the lectures, there may be films, we arrange for slide lectures for the other museums. Very often there is a lector, an electronic device, that is usually done just before the opening and then is available to the general public. I usually rent one myself because I want to see how it works and go through with the public and pay 25 cents or whatever it is and then I'm doing it exactly like everybody else and see if it's really useful
Then of course you have to plan the bookings. This is the most important thing, you cannot always rely only on the national gallery, you need 4,5,6 more places. For these big exhibitions you also need big museums, mainly for security reasons. You have to have only the best otherwise you wouldn't get to show in the first place and then also you would never sleep. You have to have a certain feeling that all is well when this exhibition has entered such and such museum. You cannot be there always, I am always asked if I travel with my exhibitions, but then I would never be at home then. I try to go to openings a few days ahead of time and I can still be useful and sometimes I can also correct a mistake or something like that. I found one marvelous [Inaudible 00:26:22] belonging to the king of Sweden, out in the open on a table, without any cover, nothing at all. Well I made it clear that this should be changed, that this object was far too valuable, should not be in the dust, should be in a position where it should possibly be stolen. And they said oh in a few days we will rearrange it and I said I'm sorry, it will be arranged now. This is the one and only thing, when you are responsible for the exhibition you have this very strong feeling about certain things that must be done!
Every last detail has to be looked into, begins with the budgeting of course and watching the development of the show, seeing if the timing is alright, you may go to the peer and meet a boat, you go to the airport and meet the curator, you discuss frames with the framer and you look over the boxes with the man who makes boxes. And you may be up all night depending on when the plane comes in and I have been many times at the national gallery and in the middle of the night waiting for something to arrive by truck from New York but you could not say exactly when it would arrive. You have to know a lot of people personally and you are constantly on the phone to be sure. There's hardly an evening when I don't send telegrams and cables to the point where they all recognize my voice. I've just been organizing a show of modern Italian paintings from the Mattioli [00:28:03] collection in Milan and in the past few weeks there was a cable every night to Milan, there was a point when the man would say now Mrs. Pope what is it tonight, what are you going to tell Mr. Mattioli tonight? So it all becomes very personal and often quite amusing
Then I like also to work with the press. Frank Getlein [00:28:25] of the star in Washington is absolutely wonderful to work with because he also is interested in the scholarly side, he wants to write the best possible article, he studies. The press release I send him is only the beginning for him, gives him a few facts and figures. From then on he's on his own and many people go to the place where an exhibition is made and look over there, this goes also for our printer, who you know very well, Mr. Gowina [00:28:57] of the HK Press. He does many catalogues for us and this last summer I met him in Milan and also met him in Paris for the next show. That means he sees the originals that will make up the catalogue. He does something quite different from me, he goes to publishers, he finds out about existing color plates, all these technical things. But he meets the collector, he sees the pictures, now what could be more important and this all adds to this slide perfectionism that we would like to maintain but it's getting more and more difficult, I must say. Trips abroad are terribly important and I usually find I can go best during the summer when our season is absolutely over, any time after the museum meetings in June, I go away for 2 or 3 months and everyone says how wonderful, how elegant but those are very long days, never alone always in conferences, looking at every imaginable exhibition, not only what might interest you but what might possibly come to America but you must be generally well informed so you looked at absolutely everything. It means total dedication to this field, this is one of them and closely related to being a museum director or a curator because 2, total dedication is probably the best words that explains it all. This means also total responsibility. When you say to the national gallery a show arrives on such and such a date, it simply must be there. This entire big machine is geared towards receiving the show, every man knows what his job is going to be and it must be there and this often makes life very difficult, there can be strikes and boats that don't sail and all that enters into it. So the best is to be married to a museum director who knows all these problems perfectly well himself, the only chance to survive I sometimes say, in both directions! When we travel, we very often travel together, he goes after his interests in the oriental field. He may be in the British museum upstairs and I may be in the British museum downstairs. We may be in the same restaurant but at different tables with different colleagues, so that's how it goes
Well to sum up the most important thing is the art educational angle I think, through travelling exhibitions a great deal can be taught, knowledge can be spread of the art in America and of the art of other countries and someone has to make these shows certainly. The history of the travelling exhibition services goes quite far back. I discovered that some efforts go back a hundred years which is quite surprising but the real beginning was in the 30s, then the American federation of art and the American association of museums started to help small museums in small towns in small states and they made very good shows, they were not often original, they were often fine reproductions but they were a beginning. They were well presented, one began then to learn the technique of doing things in a fool proof way, this is really the only description and these first people taught all the technicians how to do their job for instance, the packers had to be taught how to pack, this was different from household goods, groceries, this was something totally different; how to pack works of art, now they know. And the insurance companies had to be taught how to insure works of art which was totally different than other things they had been doing and there are now a number of specialists who do nothing but art insurance but that's terribly helpful because the laws change and one man has to keep all this in his mind. Then transportation itself, the express people, the shipping people, all this was a teaching job and I think we have gone a quite long way with all this now. Then the teachers had to be taught how to use these exhibitions, once they were there you could just leave them, something had to done about them and programs had to be built around them, this was also done and then during the war these efforts were all very much interrupted, these were not necessary and one had to resume from the beginning. And since then tremendous efforts have been made and things have skyrocketed one might say. The American association of museums did pioneer work, they grow later into regional groups that are also very active in exhibitions and each handles, each regional group now handles exhibitions by itself because the AAM has also become too large to do it all from Washington. The museum of modern art always did in my mind, the best shows. They were so absolutely perfect in every aspect and so well thought out, there was such a good staff and there still is. To me they always seemed the best models and I literally use most of their forms. I saw Ms. Dudley [00:34:47] not long ago and she said give her everything and I took everything. And these are marvelous forms from a legal point of view, how to arrange loans, what you will do, what must they do and so on
Patima Cray [00:35:01] followed Elodie Courter Osborn and they both set this up in a way that is still the best example. Now we have these regional groups, about 8 or 10, the southeast museums group and so on and they do this in their own region which seems to be the best thing, it seems to be. Then about 4 years ago, the art's council of America were founded and I understand you have a very lively one here now. It first had a few states, then more and more then there were 40, 49, Mississippi was always still missing but now there are 50
And they operate with initial federal funds which is a magnificent thing to have started. The initial funds were 25 thousand dollars which a state art's council could accept and work with. They could apply for 50 thousand and that was on a matching basis and they themselves had to raise 25 out of that and by now they have all done this. Everybody has seen the incredible importance and wisdom of this work. And New York state is perhaps the best developed now partly because the resources are incredible. There are endless museums in that state and endless surplus material which is not necessarily inferior, it is simply these museums have too much, there is duplicates of all kinds and so the Metropolitan is constantly lending to this type of show. The American federation of arts also being in New York state was given money by the art's council and proceeded to organize exhibitions which can only be circulated in the state of New York and uses mostly New York material from different museums and universities. This tremendous interest is largely due to the governor of New York is terribly interested in art himself, a great collector. He supported this from the beginning in a very vigorous way and now it's going extremely well. His brother David would like the industry to help much more than it has so far. He doesn't believe that the government alone can do it, the cities cannot, the councils cannot, foundations cannot but can we please have help from industry. This is still in the early stages but I can imagine it will be very successful as time goes on
The state of Virginia I always thought did a marvelous job, also much earlier actually than the art's council. This has gone on for 10 or 15 years in the state of Virginia. You all know Lesley Cheek [00:37:57] who started a state wide program and who initiated I believe the idea of the art mobile. Now the state has 4 art mobiles, each one contains very good art, sometimes portions of the [Inaudible 00:38:16] collection, they have been marvelous privately owned things, or for instance there was one art mobile entirely devoted to Egyptian art, one entirely devoted to Greek art. You probably know how this functions, you may have one of your own, I think it's a perfectly marvelous answer to bring art everywhere, to every village and every hamlet and since Virginia is very close to the district of Columbia, we can see this too very often, we just go to the country for an evening and there's an art mobile, there is music, there is lights, there is lectures, special talk as you go through, you listen to this, it's extremely well done and this was much initiated in Virginia.
This is also the first museum as far as I know that had its own theater, where really important theatrical performances take place. This of course is again very interesting because many exhibitions can be related to certain plays, not just Inigo Jones because it deals with the theater but others that would give you a good background for an important exhibition, one can link these things very interestingly. Mr. Cheek [00:39:37] has a wonderful board of trustees which is very important for this, they have always gone along with all these plans and this is also a flourishing state art project that absolutely goes everywhere and embraces every kind of art that one can imagine. The national gallery has had art programs from the very beginning, many people don't even realize how active it is. One beginning was the index of American design which was given to the national gallery to handle. Water colors were under the WPE during the war and show American folk art, early American art of all kinds. They are perfectly marvelous for teaching purposes and are available from the gallery without charge except forwarding to the next place. They are insured, there is no fee attached to it and I believe the national gallery has special fund to handle these educational things. Now you may have seen in the paper, Mr. Mill [00:40:45] and his sister have given 2 million dollars, following in their father footsteps for the erection of a new building right next to the national gallery where there is now tennis courts and this will become a very important building for teaching purposes. There will be changing exhibitions, there will be classes, the national gallery now has a number of fellows, very carefully selected, art historians, some American some foreign, who work under the cress professor who is in charge of these fellows. The cress professor is the second one now, [Inaudible 00:41:27] the first one was Jacob Rosenberg from Harvard. Their only duty is really to supervise the very advanced studies of these young fellows and that certainly is a marvelous teaching project, there will be more and more as the national gallery goes on because it is considered of the most tremendous importance for museums to do this. One reason is that there has been quite a difficulty about holding museum personnel. A great many young curators feel that universities have more to offer them. There is obviously a much longer summer vacation, there are sabbatical years, there may be a higher salary. All this together has created a certain flight from the museum which must now be fought because the museums have their role to play. To play it they need excellent staff and perhaps by training people within the museums and letting them work with original works of art which they can handle in this case, that might again point out to them how important it is to work with the object and not just the slides
We have just talked about the situation in this country and there is something quite similar going on abroad. London has the wonderful arts council which deals with the fine arts and the performing arts and operates in great Britain. The British council does the same but works abroad. Now in Paris and Rome and other cities, they have their own buildings, not unlike the America houses that we have, in many countries abroad. But unfortunately we have never had the British council here because it was felt that we had a very large embassy and a very active information service. Marvelously enough, there usually is an ambassador or minister that seems to act as cultural attach. As long as they don't have one at least you can get the ambassador himself to help you with an exhibition. There was a very amusing moment when Harold Catcher [00:43:51] was ambassador and I saw sir Harold I said oh please add a cultural attach - it would help me greatly with all these exhibitions that come from abroad. And no I couldn't possibly add one person, why couldn't you let one attach- go? No absolutely out of the question. Well to whom shall I go? And then he said Mrs. Pope you've got me and that is the answer. So this is not every ambassador however I should point out. Some countries do some definite couture propaganda, there is no other word, where their political life is linked very closely to their artistic output, where they do things very definitely in view of their image. The image that they want to project in the other country. I think Italy does that, France, Germany very definitely. And this would, it's extremely well done, the reason doesn't make much difference why it's done as long as it is done
The difficulty is that obviously we import much more from abroad than we send abroad and the art balance of payment as Mr. Getlein [00:45:04] called it in one of his article, is simply not achieved. We receive much more and we send very little. Now we might say yes if we ask for exhibitions we also pay for them which is true. Very often every last cent of a show that we bring from abroad is paid by us, financed by the foundation and the participating museums. Now I find sometimes that foreign museums ask us for a show and expect it free and I say first of all you want to be paid for everything that we get and then you want us to send it to you as a present, I don't see how we can do that. We have done quite a lot of it and especially the museum of modern art through the international council has been able to be extremely generous but we can't all do it and I don't think it's quite right that we do it all the time. We pay, we pay, it goes perhaps a little bit too far.
My foundation would like very much to work in both directions that is to organize exhibitions that come from abroad and send some abroad. I have quite a few that are American in origin and stay just in this country.
Great question that I should like to ask in closing is what shall the future bring, where shall travelling exhibitions go? I can't quite tell you myself, will they become bigger and better, will they become more and more or will it become quite difficult to borrow and will that cut us down a little bit. I have really no answers for this, I just know that depending on your personal attitude, your personal wishes, you can still get perfectly marvelous shows and I of course do not want many, 6 a year or something like that. But it is becoming a greater problem for some organizations I've been told. Should we continue to help poor museums or should we do something for the biggest museums in the biggest cities? The Metropolitan museum has 10 thousand, 20 thousand, even 60 thousand visitors in one Sunday, isn't that worth working with them because of this incredible number of people that come. Today, it's absolutely the thing to do in New York to go all Sunday to the museum, the entire family, there are crawling babies, there is everything. Mothers cannot leave the house until the children come too. And certainly they enjoy themselves or they wouldn't come, the museum of modern art is a mad house on Sunday. I used to go myself when I was in New York over the weekend to see things, it's no longer possible. We are now the ones who are driven out of the museums to a certain extent. We are the ones who should be well informed, who must study, who must see those exhibitions everywhere but not on Sunday, never on Sunday, it's a great difficulty!
Well I think we have to leave this question about the future to someone else, we can just watch it, we can see how these things increase every year but we cannot make any definite prediction, at least I can't. Thank you very much
[End of Audio 00:48:38]

Publisher (Electronic Version)

Archives and Manuscripts Collections, The Baltimore Museum of Art;

Holding Institution

Baltimore Museum of Art;

Date Original

1967-11-17

Date Digital

2011

Type

Sound;

Format

Digital reproduction of one sound tape reel, 48 minutes, 38 seconds

Source

Audiovisual Collection, AV.RR.12.B

Coverage (Time Period)

1961-1970;

Rights

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